


Maybe it's Messy But it's Everything We Want

by Thefandomsaretakingovermylife



Series: Art [1]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Soulmates, and its an AU so i can do what i want, look i just really like soulmate AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-10-01 18:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20359750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thefandomsaretakingovermylife/pseuds/Thefandomsaretakingovermylife
Summary: She was told not to love him. She was told not to try. But what did everyone expect when marks keep appearing on her skin; drawings done with childish abandon, red and angry scars, and tattoos done with ink as black as a starless night sky. Marks that remind her that she’s not alone and that there is someone out there destined to be her soulmate. Marks that remind her she married the wrong person almost 20 years ago.





	Maybe it's Messy But it's Everything We Want

She can remember the first time she saw any type of mark on her skin. She had been 15 years old, sitting at her desk in homeroom. The loudspeaker above her head was blasting pointless news and she could not bring herself to pay attention let alone care. She had looked down for just a second and she remembers not even registering the fact that four solid bars in black marker ink were present for at least a few hours. But when she did see those small black bars, she couldn’t stop herself from tracing the drawings with her pointer finger and the smile that found its way onto her face.

She had heard of them before; soulmate marks. They were designed to help find the one person who you were supposed to be, the one person that was supposed to love you. For the first 15 years of her life, she didn’t truly believe that those marks existed. Love had been all too rare in her life. 

Her father had left her, her sister Annie, and her mother years ago when she had been 12 and her sister only two. Before he had officially disappeared from her life, he had been in and out of the house, never there for more than a few days at a time and then gone for weeks. And now that he was gone, her mother was too, lucky to bring herself outside of her room once a day. Beth had to learn at an early age to care not only for herself but her sister too. She imagines the guilt got to her father, not enough to bring him back, but enough to where he would send support. $100 here, $300 there; frequent enough to where they rent was paid (although it was often late), but not enough to where the three of them were living in the lap of luxury.

With her father gone and her mom drinking her life away in the comfort of her bedroom, those small black bars had been like a breath of fresh air. They were a reminder, that even though they had yet to meet, there was someone in this world that was hers and only hers, or least that’s what she told herself. The reality was that she didn’t even know his name or if they even lived in the same country. He could be 10 years older and happily in love or 10 years younger and just discovered what a box of markers could do to human skin. But despite the fact she had no clue who this mystery person was, she was going to know at some point and that brought comfort to her mind.

And every day, as she watched those bars slowly fade away as the ink left the owners skin, she imagined who was on the other side of those bars.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She remembers when she first told someone about those black bars. It had been the same day they had appeared, sitting on her front porch with her best friend, Ruby. She was shaking the whole time, scared out of her mind. Ruby was one of the few lucky ones, experienced her first mark at 10 and found her soulmate not even three years later, a boy named Stan who she met when he started at her school in the middle of the year. Two years later and the pair was inseparable, a fairytale story for the ages. 

She can recall the yells her sister made from inside the house and the ecstatic look on her friends face when she told her. The squeals that escaped both of their throats at the sight of the now-familiar ink.

“Are you going to write back to him?”

“Why would I do that? It could just be a fluke. One of those one-offs that I’ve read about.” 

“Come on, B! You know those are extremely rare. You’ve waited years for this!”

“What would I even write? Hi? My name is Beth and I was wondering what’s up with the random drawing all of a sudden?”

“Okay, maybe not that. That just screams bad idea. You could start with your name or a drawing of your own. Better yet, let me draw something for you.”

“Nah, I’m good. If I was going to do something, I would want to do it myself. It’s my soulmate.”

Rather abruptly, Ruby stood up and opened the front door of Beth’s house behind them and marched straight over the threshold and into the house she knew so well after years of friendship with Beth. She was only gone for a minute before she returned and held out her fist, a black sharpie enclosed in her hand,

“Then do it. Don’t think about it. Just do something and let him know you’re there.”

So, Beth took the pen from Ruby’s outstretched hand and did as she was told. For ten minutes she worked intently, dragging the instrument across her skin, her eyes narrowed in concentration, her back slightly hunched to try and hide her arm from the curious eyes of her friend looking over her shoulder. 

“Let me see!”

“You’ll see when I’m done.”

True to her word, she straightened her body out and held her arm out slightly in her eye line to admire her work. There, in elaborate and precise workmanship, was her initials in flowing cursive letters.

**EIM **

Elizabeth Irene Marks.

She always fancied herself a little bit of an artist so while she kept the concept simple, the execution was beautiful, the letters dancing across her wrist. 

“Think he’ll know what it means, Ruby?”

“Maybe. It’s kinda vague but it’s not like eim is an actual word. I don’t think it’ll be too difficult to work out.”

“Maybe he’ll even draw something back.”

“Maybe. Just remember, B. You don’t really know who this is. It’s easy to get all caught up in the mystery and excitement of soulmate marks. Don’t go fallin’ in love with something who isn’t here yet or try looking for him in every person you find. It could be years before he makes himself known again. Don’t close yourself off because you know someone is out there.”

“Yeah, I know. He might not even be that good of a match for me. Look at my parents. They’re soulmates and they made each other miserable.”

“True but look at me and Stan. Sure, we’re only 15 and anything major is a few years away but we make each other happy so far. I’m not saying it’ll always be that way, but for now, it seems like those marks knew what they were doing.”

“I would be so lucky.”

“Yeah. You would.”

Their laughter mingled together in the space between them. 

“Hate you.”

“Hate your face.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She never told anyone about her marks after that. It was common practice to keep whatever marks appeared private unless they were tattoos and impossible to cover up. She was hoping to God her soulmate was not old enough to get one yet or stupid enough to get one underage.

She never told anyone when he drew an arrow to her initials and in his own handwriting asked, ‘what the hell does that mean’. 

She never told anyone that she replied and then he did and that it quickly became a habit that went on for years to have something he drew on her body. Short conversations in tiny handwriting occupied her legs while drawings they made stayed visible on her arms.

Nobody knew that they exchanged names and that he refused to call her by her nickname, claiming it was too ordinary and that she was anything but. Or that they told trivial facts about themselves like that Beth’s favorite colour was red and that his was black and that after that it was common for her to use a red marker to write and draw to help distinguish which messages were his and which were hers. 

Beth kept it to herself that when she was 20, ten numbers appeared on her wrist with the message ‘need to talk’ next to it. Soon, it would become too painful to tell anyone. Their story was etched into her brain and Beth convinced herself that it was a good sign that he wanted more than just temporary ink marking their skin, that he wanted to actually talk to her, to hear her voice. But she was only getting her hopes up because when she finally reached out and called him, the fantasy she built around him came crashing down.

“Yeah?”

Beth didn’t know if it was normal for him to answer the phone with such a curt opening but that didn't matter. When she first heard his voice, she completely forgot why she called.

“Who is this? How’d you get this number?”

She swore she had never heard anything like his voice. It sounded like velvet that had the ability to take on a life of its own and wrap itself around her. At that moment, Beth thought that she would want never more than to just stay there and listen to him talk for the rest of time.

“Look, you have five seconds to say something and stop wasting my time before I hang up and block your fucking number.”

It was the harshness in his voice that grabbed her attention and let her find her voice again.

“Rio?”

“Shit! Elizabeth, that you?”

“Yeah.” The one word coming out more like a whisper than a confident answer. She hated how, without even meeting him, he was able to have any kind of effect on her.

“Sorry. If I had known it was you…”

“It’s fine, Rio. You said you needed to talk, so here I am. Let’s talk.”

There was a long silence before he answered, his breathing quickening slightly.

“It’s not exactly easy to say this. I mean this is the first time we’ve ever talked, and I know that we’re not together or anything but…Elizabeth I met someone.”

There was no way she had heard him right. There was no way he would consider this when he knew that she, his soulmate, was out there waiting for him.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Her name’s Vanessa. We met at a job I was doin’. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I just…I felt like I owed it to you to tell ya.”

“You had me call you so you could tell me that you, my soulmate, are dating someone.”

“Well, when you say it like that.”

“Say it like what? The truth? I don’t know how else to say it.”

“We can carry on like we always have and now that you have my number, we can talk more. I just wanted to tell you….”

“Tell me that you’re seeing someone?”

“That I’m engaged. We’re getting married”

The silence was on her part. This had to have been a bad dream.

“Congratulations, Rio.”

She could barely get the words out. It felt like the walls were closing in on her or like she was drowning on dry land. The one person who she was destined to be with was in love with someone else.

“Thanks, Ma.”

Beth never responded. The click of her phone hanging up did that for her. The tears came soon after.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was 25 when he got his first tattoo. She woke up from a nap with her arm in deep, searing pain. Beside her, in his crib, was baby Kenny, only a few months old, and it took all her might to not scream out in pain and wake up her sleeping little angel. Dean, her husband of three years, was not due home from the dealership for hours and even if she was able to, she knew she couldn’t call him. He had no idea that his wife had a soulmate. He thought she was like him, a rare type of person who never got their marks.

Beth raced to her bathroom and contorted her body to try and catch a glimpse of what was causing the pain only to be met with the sight of pitch-black ink making its way on her skin.

She wanted to scream. She wanted nothing more than to pick up the phone and yell at him to stop, but she couldn’t. He wouldn’t care. They hadn’t spoken since that day five years, the day they had first spoken, ultimately ending any and all forms of communication. It had become too much to handle for Beth.

The pain continued for quite some time. It felt like it would never end. After hours, there was finally a break. She thought she was safe from the pain, that it was over now and that her skin was now permanently altered. Her first thought was to run to the mirror and see what was now visible but the sound of a car pulling up in her driveway, signaling Dean arriving home caused her to change her course of action, only giving her enough time to throw on a pullover sweater to hide the marks before the front door opened.

But the pain only left for a while because soon it became clear that man on the other side of the tattoo decided to get both of his arms tattooed, at the same time, in the same seating, the idiot.

She thought she was going to pass out from the level of aching her arms were in. She had heard that when a soulmate gets a tattoo, the pain is intensified for the other person. There was nothing to explain why this was so and it always seemed like a tale told to scare people into not getting tattoos but now she thinks it’s a way to discourage individuals from seeking out their soulmates because, in this moment, she desperately wanted to punch Rio in the face for this.

The rest of the day continued on as normal, or as normal as it could be with a large amount of pain shooting itself up and down her arms. She had finally gotten her son to bed and Beth had a moment to breathe and try to sleep some of the discomfort away, but there was something in the back of her mind that made her stop and head to her bathroom, to the mirror, where she twisted her body in the same way she did that morning.

She didn’t stop the smile that graced her face when she saw thick black bars etched onto the back of both her arms, hoping that while he been married for years now, he was still thinking of her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We robbed a grocery store.”

Life had finally been good for Beth. She was married to a good man with four loving children. And thanks to some very heavy-handed applied foundation every morning to her neck to cover yet another tattoo that appeared, she had managed to hide her soulmate from her husband for years. Or, at least she thought life was good.

After just a few years shy of 20 years of marriage, Dean had managed to back her into a corner. Multiple mortgages were taken out on her house, her bank accounts were practically empty, and her husband had decided to spend what little money they had on bedazzled underwear for his 20 something-year-old secretary. She didn’t have a choice.

“Oh, we totally did!”

At least Ruby and Annie were still there for her after all this bullshit happened in her life.

“And we actually got away with it.”

“Like some smooth criminals!”

Beth and Ruby, no matter how hard they tried, could not stop the smiles on their faces. They had broken the law, big-time, and gotten away with it. They were on top of the world. Nothing could stop them now. They would save their families and come out better than before.

They got more money then they knew what to do with, and they knew they should take it back, or divide it up and sit on it, or leave it on the doorstep of the police station, or burn it for all they care, but they couldn’t. This money was their saving grace. It would allow them to give their kids the lives they deserve. This cash was literally going to save lives. All three of them were riding a high and were praying to never come down.

Until Beth came home a week later to a strange man sitting on her countertop, holding a gold-plated gun in his hand, and reality came crashing down again.

They robbed a grocery store. They didn’t get away with getting that kind of money without upsetting a few people. A few very shady and dangerous people.

“What do you want?”

As the man came closer, Beth's eyes trailed over his face, but they were quickly drawn to his neck where an eagle was proudly perched. A familiar eagle. An eagle that she has had to nonstop cover with very expensive foundation every day for years to hide its existence from the others that live under her roof. Before he could answer, Beth cut him off.

“Wait…just…stand still.”

It was like she was being pulled by a magnet to him, inevitably drawn to him. Her hand, with what seemed to be a mind of its own, reached out to trace the thin lines over his throat.

“Bitch, what do ya think you’re doing?!”

His voice, while slightly deeper now, still sounded as it did all those years ago. It still sounded of velvet and seemed to wrap her up in its musical like qualities. At least, those harsh words were music to her ears. He watched as recognition filled her eyes.

“Rio.”

She watched as recognition filled his.

“Elizabeth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread but I am human and make mistakes. Title and series title comes from the song Art by Sean Grandillo. Also, I know that it would be literally impossible to keep something as huge as a neck tattoo from someone who sleeps next to you but for the sake of this story, just roll with it. Thanks for reading. <3


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